


James Eyre

by nightmare_kisser



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Community: mcfassy, Jane Eyre - Freeform, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:03:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightmare_kisser/pseuds/nightmare_kisser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meet Michael Rochester and James Eyre, two souls that meet by unique circumstance, dance around one another, and finally come together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Originally for Tumblr, but now I give you historical romance AU McFassy, featuring Michael Rochester and James Eyre. And this is part of a fic-challenge again/with dkwanzaa, so read her fic, too, on Tumblr! C:
> 
> Note: some other actors will be in this as well. Here's a hint: When "Jennifer" is mentioned, it's Jennifer Lawrence, a.k.a. First Class' Mystique. So… be warned of that, haha. ;D
> 
> And now, without further ado, here is my first chapter, mine based more off of the movie than the novel, and the general idea is all thanks to this general concept by someone else (they changed their URL, so my original link doesn't work, but search 'James Eyre' and I'm sure you'll find it).

He's never been much of anything. At least, that's what he's always been led to believe. He's simply this orphaned boy taken in by an aunt who rather dislikes his "feisty" attitude toward the world, and whom likes to keep him out of sight from others, set aside like some sort of gender-swapped Cinderella, minus the excessive list of chores, and all because he is a child who likes to speak his mind.

He has a name, however. They (his cousins, his aunt, strangers who visit the house that are "friends of the family" that he doesn't know very well) like to call him things, sticks and stones, all little offenses that would make a fellow adult huff and turn out of the room or a different child scrunch their face up and cry, but not he. Because he knows who he is: James Eyre.

He stands by his name, clinging to it to help define him as he grows older. He gets into fights with his cousins, he gets punished, and finally, his aunt has had enough. She demands that he do something with himself. He is eighteen, well educated, and surely sick of living here.

And he _is_ sick of living here. He is physically _ill_ because of this place, its negative energy, its restraint, its unkind hand gripping his heart and chilling his lungs each and every day he rises from bed. So he stands in the middle of the conversation with her, back erect with tension, the delicate décor of the room around him making him feel like a bull in a China shop as stands over her, mere meters away.

"Then I will take my leave of this place, Aunt. If that so pleases you, I will leave. I've been meaning to do so for years now, but I knew someone such as yourself could never choke down the _scandal_ of having a runaway," he states firmly, the only venom of sarcasm leaking out into his tone on the word 'scandal.' He inhales sharply, turns slightly, and heads out of the room.

He intends to pack. He doesn't hear his aunt protest in the least. And when he has the bare essentials and not much more put into a single suitcase, he heads for the door that evening. It's unceremonious, his leaving; no one says much beyond a "goodbye, James," and he doesn't even give them a passing glance when he replies accordingly.

His aunt doesn't so much as touch him when she sees him to the door. All she says is, "Best wishes, nephew."

And he nods, grunts a thank you, and starts down the path away from the house, never once looking back.

0o0o0

As it happens, it's quite a challenge to land a decent job that is kilometers and kilometers away from the house James was so keen on leaving behind. He searches quite a few towns for quite a few sorts of jobs, but some of them rather don't suit him – blacksmithing? Honestly, how is he expected to take that on, even as an apprentice? – and others don't pay enough for him to make a decent living for himself.

And that, curiously enough, is how he finds himself walking up to the doors of a rather elaborate mansion on a stupendously large estate belonging to a definitively well-known man.

When they ask his name and heritage, he is as vague as he can be about the latter, but instantly, on the former, he informs them: "James Eyre, madam. And all I have is my wit and knowledge, so if that is of any use to you, please, I pray you, let me work here."

James thinks not much of anything when he's accepted into the house and asked if he can use his education to be the personal tutor, a governor of sorts, to the man's ward, a bright young girl with blonde hair and grey eyes. She goes by the name Jennifer, and James finds that he likes the girl instantly. She is French, and as endearing as what James imagines a sweet younger sister would be like.

"Tell me, _Monsieur,_ do you know my master? He's a gruff man, but I like him. He's very good to me. He buys me pretty dresses, and hires kind people like you and _Mademoiselle_ Anne-Marie!" the eleven-year-old says to James in French within the first month of his stay at Rochester manor.

He smiles at the little girl, patting her on the shoulder and setting her back on her studies, trying to teach her English and mathematics and other general things. But he replies softly in French while she writes, converting a sentence from French to English on the parchment, " _Non_ , I don't know heads or tails of your master, I'm afraid. I have never seen him, and only by living here for the past month he's been away have I heard rumors about his behavior and, ah, background. He sounds like a very prestigious man."

Jennifer laughs, the sound like tinkling bells, and Anne-Marie walks in just then, rolling her eyes and smiling a bit. "How is the work coming along?" she asks, moving about the room to dust various items with a rag sweeping along surfaces, wood and glass alike.

"Just fine. Jennifer is a smart girl, and she is learning English quickly." He switches to French to ask the blonde beside him, "Would you like to tell our lovely friend what you learned today?"

"Oh!" Jennifer says brightly, lifting her head from its tilted gaze down at the paper to smile up at the maid. In a thickly accented English and with slightly mussed grammar, she relays slowly, "Mr. Eyre taught me how to say a common verse of Bible. It speaks, 'The Lord is my light and salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is my strength and life; Of whom shall I be afraid?'"

"Ah, I know that one; Psalm 27:1, correct?" Anne asks, looking mainly to James for the answer.

He nods. "Yes, that's right. I thought a courageous verse would be a fair one to teach her, because courage is about all I had when I left my home," he says honestly, and Anne nods, smiling gently.

"I know that all too well, dearie. And thank you for teaching that to her; Mr. Rochester isn't a very religious man, at least not in our presence, so I'm glad the girl will have something to believe in," she says, and with that, she finishes her dusting in the study and exits.

Back in French, James turns to Jennifer and starts her on a fresh translation to do, telling her that he will be but a moment.

When he leaves the girl to herself, he doesn't look for Anne-Marie, and he doesn't ask some of the things he honestly is in dire need of knowing, because he knows that Anne won't have the answers. So, instead, he fetches himself some tea and some for Jennifer, and when he returns, she has the sentence more or less correct, and he ends the English lesson for the day.

But one question haunts him, one that Jennifer makes him ponder as she whispers, gazing out the window and murmuring in choppy English, "I have hope Mr. Rochester will be soon backing home. I again want to seeing him."

James gently corrects her speech, but the small additional lesson is barely in the forefront of his mind as he agrees with her, because he's been in this house for a month, but despite this, he has yet to meet the man who owns it. So he nods, assuring her quietly that the time will come soon enough, and with the quick corrections, they part.

The tutor nibbles his bottom lip thoughtfully, and retreats to the vast library, aiming to read something new this evening. He tries his best not to dwell too long on curious thoughts regarding the infamous Mr. Michael Rochester, things like what the man looks like (there are no paintings of him in his home, as far as James has seen), and what his true nature is like, and other little things.

He clears his throat, listens to the binding crackle as he opens a tired old book, and goes about reading it as the waning sun lowers in the bleak, early autumn sky.


	2. Two

" _Monsieur, monsieur! Monsieur_ Eyre!" Jennifer is piping up animatedly, bouncing a bit as Anne-Marie reminds her that it isn't womanly or becoming to hop about like a rabbit, but the maid is smiling as she says it, and Jennifer is giggling.

James is startled from sleep, having more than dozed off once again in the library. He has a book in his lap, his fifth one this week. James' head snaps upward from his reclined, drooped position in an armchair. His neck is sore, and he rubs it idly as he stretches and yawns, stumbling as he stands. "Sorry, but what is all this excitement about?"

"A messenger just came down the path, saying that Mr. Rochester is coming home today. We all need to meet up and take Mr. Rochester in from his travels when he arrives," Anne explains mildly, guiding the French girl out of the library. "We thought we ought to warn you, due to the fact that you are in yesterday's rumpled clothes and might want to chew on a few mint leaves before you go speaking to the owner of the household." And she's smiling, so James huffs a laugh with a short smile and nods, bookmarking his page with a ribbon and taking his book with him back to his quarters.

James strips out of his clothes, all three layers of it, and freshens himself up with some water and cologne, wishing he had time to shave his day-old stubble to look more presentable, but as he glances out the large windows, he sees a man on a horse making his way toward the house from the nearby wood, and he knows that it will have to be left alone for now.

As he redresses himself in fresher clothing and quickly fixes his hair, combing it to the side (only to have it flip back again here and there due to the curls and natural wave in his hair). He hears bustling coming from downstairs, so James hastily adjusts his shirt-collar and cuffs before deems himself all right in the mirror and fleeing his room.

Downstairs, he helps gets thing settled and prepared; hot tea, fire in the fireplace, and so on. A cook asks for help, and James willingly gives it. "Go out and fetch a few mushrooms from the wood for me, would you? You know the ones I like to fry up? Mr. Rochester loves them. Now there's a good lad," says the older woman, and James nods, moving to put on his boots as he rushes out of the kitchen, needing to make it back in time before the host arrives.

He wanders through the wood, and he wonders with a frown why the man he saw on the path isn't being taken into the house. He keeps peering through the trees, and he doesn't quite understand what he sees; is that man not Mr. Rochester? Is it someone else?

Shrugging to himself, James makes it a game of spying mushrooms. He counts the ones he sees; three edible white ones wide and flat on a tree trunk, seven inedible black ones dotting the forest floor, and ah, there, four yummy brown ones he needs to be picking. He picks them up and bundles them together, but just as he spies two more on a fallen branch draped with moss, he is startled out of his wits by the sound of a horse's whinny.

James' gaze zooms to the source of the sound. A man and his steed are trotting near him, and as James tries to duck out of the way, the horse gives a start and rears to avoid him, but the momentum is too great and the beast drops to the ground, pinning his rider by the leg beneath its side.

"Ah! So sorry, m'lord, so sorry. Here, let me help you –" James begins, moving toward the rider as the horse rolls onto its stomach and stands again. It paces in a circle and nearly leaves, walking toward the direction of the house.

The fallen rider grunts and waves away James' hands. His hat is askew, making James frown at the half-covered identity of the man. He sees impressive sideburns and a lack of moustache, and a grimace on widespread, thin, firm lips, a bottom row of perfectly straight teeth exposed. "Back off, back off; I don't need your help," the man says as he stands, and James feels a tad offended and disappointed, but withholds it from his face.

"Well, pardon me for trying to undo a minor mistake," James retorts, backing off as instructed and straightening his vest under his jacket.

The man grunts again, straightening himself and groaning at the feeling in his leg as he limps over to a thick, fallen tree trunk to sit upon as he dusts the clots of mud from his pants and side of his coat. "If you want to undo your mistake, then kindly guide my horse back to me. You gave him a fright and now he thinks it's a peachy idea to march off when I still need him."

"Oh, ah – yes. Right, I shall do so," James mutters, and he isn't very good with horses. They are large, too large, with big breathing lungs and hot breaths from round nostrils and sharp teeth in big mouths. He swallows hard and makes his way toward the animal, watching it rear and nod its head, scuffing the ground with a hoof, eyeing James warily, the white of its eyes in great contrast against the brown and black of its irises and pupils. "Shh, shh, easy, boy, easy," James says shakily, and behind him, he can tell that the stranger is watching him carefully.

"For God's sake, he won't nip you. Just take him by the reigns and bring him here," the stranger scoffs, and James imagines the man rolling his eyes as he lifts the brim of his hat, or perhaps shaking his head, at James' timid actions. But how can James help himself? Horses are… _quite intimidating._

Nodding stiffly and taking just as hesitant steps, James grips the horse by the leather straps dangling around its thick neck and he starts to walk, hoping that the tugs will make the beast move. It does, and James peers back at the man to find him standing and hobbling over, testing out his leg after the fall and watching the horse instead of James.

"I would thank you, but you seem just as incompetent as this dumb animal can be," the man remarks, and James makes a choking sound.

"I beg your pardon!" James sputters, and the man smirks.

"Said in jest, boy. In jest," the man snorts, and he mounts the horse with little difficulty, despite his injury. "Now off with you; I need to be going."

"I am certainly _not_ a boy, I'll have you know!" James shouts at the two retreating backsides of horse and man. "I am younger than you, perhaps, but I am a _man_!"

And the stranger simply barks a laugh and waves the back of his hand in a mock salute over his shoulder. James stands and seethes, nearly squashing the mushrooms he still has clutched in one hand. He doesn't think much of anything, save for a single phrase flitting through his mind as he collects a few more mushrooms and heads toward the house once more. And the thought is in regards to the _gentleman_ James had just had the _pleasure_ to meet, and the thought is simple: "Tch, what an absolute _arsehole."_

0o0o0

"Here's in his personal study, catching up with his ward," one of the maids, Miss Zoë, tells James as he walks by. "He would like to see you soon, since you are a new employee of his mansion. It's only natural that he should know you."

James nods. "Terribly true," he remarks, and he isn't sure how 'terrible' the truth is, but he soon finds out.

For the moment that he walks into the warmth of the study, he sees the back of a chair, Jennifer seated on a small, cushioned footrest before it, smiling softly and speaking in her messy English to show off her learned skill, James gets a dreadful feeling in his gut.

When the blonde girl spies him, she leaps up and runs to him, taking him by the hand and leading him to the chair across from Mr. Rochester. James doesn't get a good look until he's seated, but the second Mr. Rochester looks up, his hands laced together neatly in front of him, elbows on the armrests of his chair, and no hat hiding his face and hair, James freezes, his whole body tensing and washing cold as he realizes what the dread and 'terrible' bit of truth had been about.

This is the same man he met earlier this morning out in the wood, the same stranger he had indirectly knocked from his horse and failed to assist properly. The stranger and Michael Rochester are one and the same, and so is the fool and the ward's governor.

If Mr. Rochester notices the same thing or not, and if there is even a scrap of recognition upon seeing James, he gives no sign of it. Instead, he leans forward a smidgen and frees one hand from the other to gesture at Jennifer. "I have been told that you are her new caretaker and teacher," he remarks.

James swallows a lump in his dry throat and nods his head briskly. "Yes. She is a very well-behaved little girl, and she learns quickly."

"He been taken a liking to me," Jennifer says, once again practicing her English, although her accent weighs on her words. "And I to him. He is good man, Mr. Rochester! Very kind. Very smart. He be like big brother I never had."

Mr. Rochester's faint smile directed toward her isn't missed in the flicker of firelight, and it stuns James for a moment to think the man is capable of any form of smile, no matter how slight. When he reconnects his gaze to James' face, the smile is gone and he is sitting up in his chair again. Still look at James, Mr. Rochester addresses Jennifer. "My girl, it's getting late. Would you mind going to bed? I would like to interview the newest addition to my household."

" _Oui,_ Mr. Rochester!" the blonde says cheerfully, merging her French and English for a moment. She stands from the ottoman, gives her master a quick peck on the cheek with a whisper of 'goodnight,' and then saunters off, her skirts flouncing with each bouncy step.

Alone, James feels uncomfortable. He fidgets in his seat in the most minute of ways, such as fixing a cuff and clearing his throat softly. He meets Mr. Rochester's gaze slowly, and once their eyes meet fully, they lock in place and suddenly it's the only place James can look.

"James Eyre is your name, is it not?"

"It is."

The homeowner nods, and he starts to take out a pipe from a wooden box on the small table beside his chair. He idly packs tobacco into it and lights it, speaking in between inhales to make the match catch fire to the leaves. "And you came from… where? A manor owned by one Mrs. Gibson-Reed, I hear."

"That's correct," James retorts, and he feels himself become less nervous and more on the defense.

"Were you treated well?" Mr. Rochester asks mildly, eyes lifting from his pipe as he exhales a puff of smoke.

"I highly doubt the conditions of my keep at that household are necessary knowledge," James answers swiftly, folding his hands in his lap where he has his legs crossed at the knee.

"Perhaps not, but I wanted to make sure that you are treated far better here than there, because it would be a shame for you to leave one location of poor treatment only to walk into a similar or worse living circumstance at another location, would it not?" and there is a hint of a smirk in his tone, but nothing on his face.

James tightens his jaw for a moment, molars pressing together. "I suppose it would. But I can assure you that I like it here far better than I did at my aunt's."

"Wonderful," Mr. Rochester nods once, curtly, and he looks away again, blowing out smoke, and gazing into the dancing flames of the fire. "So if I made a contract with you to educate little Jennifer for a few coming years, you wouldn't protest?"

"Certainly not. Jennifer is a delight, as are the rest of your employed servants. And while the pay doesn't matter as much to me, I could use whatever bit I earn, so if I may have a stable job and income here, I will uphold it for however many months or years that I'm needed and wanted," James answers, and he is peering curiously at the man across from him. Michael Rochester is neither a devilishly handsome nor an incredibly hideous man. He is somewhere caught in between, his cheekbones chiseled, his jaw strong, his eyes an intense green-blue-grey, faintly wrinkled around the corners, and his body is long and lean with a narrow waist and broad shoulders.

"Just what I wanted to hear," Mr. Rochester agrees. "So it's settled, then: you will work for me for the duration of Jennifer's education." There is a pause in which the gentleman across from James smokes a bit more of a pipe, and then the silence is broken once again by the same man. "So, tell me, Mr. Eyre, how old are you?"

"Eighteen," James says slowly. "I will be nineteen in two months."

"And do you know how aged I am?" he asks, and it's an odd question.

"I suspect you are in your early thirties," James replies, "But with all the smoking you must do, you could be as young as your late twenties."

The man smirks, and James once again catches the brief quirk of lips. "You are right on the money; I am thirty-two. Do you think much of age differences?"

"I think more of maturity levels," the tutor remarks. He glances away, at the fireplace, for no longer than a second. "They are more telling of one's age than years since birth."

"Truer words never spoken," Mr. Rochester agrees. "And what do you think of appearances?"

"Come again?" James frowns, adjusting his back against the support of his chair. "What do appearances have to do with –?"

Mr. Rochester drones on as if James has not spoken, "For example, you appear to be older than eighteen, as if you were in your early twenties, and it's possibly because of your maturity. Except there is also the matter of your general looks and how they appeal to others; your lips, your eyes and brows, your nose, your cheekbones, and so on. The combination, paired with your physique, all make up your appearance. You clothes matter as well; the way you personally dress tells me that you come from decent income with a fashionable background, but it also tells me that you are particular about your looks, because your shirt-collar is not one of being worn all day, but of one that was recently fixed up to appear more presentable."

"…So what is it, exactly, you are trying to say, Mr. Rochester?" the younger man quips.

"Merely that appearances, to you, seem to matter, and you seem to use your genetics to your advantage. Tell me, did many women fall at your feet or wish you to court them before you came here?" and now he _is_ smirking, not even trying to cover it up, and James wonders how they got on this topic, because he would like to change it, but it would be rude, so he clears his throat instead.

"No, not many. My aunt disliked me, so she often confined me to the house. I knew a girl once when I was a boy of thirteen, but she was only a friend, and we were too young to think of one another in a courtship-like manner," James replies softly. He glances up from his hands in his lap. His gaze is unwavering, and Mr. Rochester raises a brow at it, but doesn't comment on the intensity of it.

"Well then, Mr. Eyre, do you think I had many falling at my feet for more than my money?" Mr. Rochester asks lowly, and this is a dangerous question, James can feel it. It makes his stomach turn in his abdomen, and he inhales deeply.

"…Sir?"

The smirk is fading. "Perhaps that is the wrong question, then. Let me rephrase: do you think me handsome, Mr. Eyre?"

James can feel the flare of a blush on his cheeks, and he is grateful to the firelight to obstructing the flush from view with its moving shadows over his face. "Not hardly, Mr. Rochester," James answers mostly honestly. Like he thought before, Mr. Rochester is neither a devilishly handsome man, nor a hideous one. He is good-looking, but he isn't quite 'handsome.' There is a unique beauty to him, and James tries not to think too long or hard about it, because it isn't appropriate for more reasons than one.

"Not hardly," Mr. Rochester repeats, and he chuckles, and it surprises James to hear, because, again, he hadn't taken Michael Rochester as the sort to actually _laugh_ (even if it is only a small _chuckle)._ "In that case, I suppose it's safe to say that I think you attractive, James Eyre. Would you disagree?"

"I… I wouldn't know," James says with a slight stutter. "I never thought of myself as either attractive or not before, and I certainly never thought I would hear a man telling me which I am."

Mr. Rochester is definitely amused, his eyes tired but lighting up a bit, and he leans back in his chair and waves a hand. "That is all I wished to discuss with you tonight, Mr. Eyre. You may retire to your room, if you like. Or, according to what Jennifer has told me, you might chose instead to retire to the library?"

James stands, feeling a rush of something run through him, and he retorts, "Yes, I shall. Goodnight, Mr. Rochester."

"I respect avid readers. Goodnight, Mr. Eyre."

And with that, James very nearly _storms_ out of the study; he's not sure why, but he's feeling a bit like someone lit a fire under his toes. There is heat coursing through him, and he can't place it, because it is like a Hellish mixture of offense, rage, embarrassment, tension, and something too close to being sexual for James' liking. So he immerses himself in the book he hadn't finished the night before, but as he loses his concentration again and again, he decides finally to go to bed and calm the minute increase in pace of his heartbeat.


	3. Three

Michael Rochester, James soon discovers, is actually a very active man.

He watches from the window while he teaches Jennifer, and he sees Mr. Rochester aid in outdoor work in preparation for winter, and spies Mr. Rochester even chopping some of his own wood. He seems to care about the state of his home, and even though he has workers, he likes to participate in many of the tasks himself. How whatever reason, James isn't sure, but it's intriguing to watch.

"Is he always like that?" James asks Jennifer in French, on the third day of watching this go on.

She peers out the window, brushing some hair behind one ear and cocking her head slightly. "Oh, yes, he is. Master Rochester is… independent? Is that an appropriate word to use?"

James chuckles and nods. "In this case, I would say it is. He does seem that way: wanting to do things for himself. It isn't a poor attribute, however. It's quite admirable." He thinks to himself that eh wishes he were more independent, but what eighteen-year-old with a job needs to be more independent? He works and earns money, and he isn't wed, so what need is there?

An hour after their lessons end (they began late today; they followed lunch and worked until supper), James retreats to the library for some evening reading, as per usual. He selects a book at random from a shelf in the back, and flips through it. It seems gripping enough as he reads one or two scattered phrases here and there, so he settles down with the book in his lap as he finds his favorite armchair to rest in by the library's fireplace (there are a great deal of fireplaces in the Rochester mansion, and James finds this warming and comforting).

James is not quite halfway through the second chapter before he has company. He tries not to glance upward when someone chooses the chair across from him, a book in their own hands. He tries not to let his heart jump in his chest when the person clears their throat, and James recognizes the voice in that sound. And he tries his absolute best not to lick his dry lips and open his mouth to speak when that someone greets, "Good evening, Mr. Eyre," in his direction.

But James fails all three tries, winding up glancing, having his heart speed up, and his mouth open to return the greeting. "And good evening to you, Mr. Rochester."

The older man nods his head at James' book. "Which one is that?"

James doesn't trust his voice, so he shows the man the cover, and Mr. Rochester nods, smiling almost imperceptibly.

"Ah, one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it as well," Mr. Rochester remarks, and he lifts his own book. "This one isn't very good, but the last time I read it, I was in the wrong mindset, so perhaps this time around it will seem better to me."

"I find that one doesn't need a particular mindset to read something; as long as it's written well or read in perfect silence, any book will reveal its true colors and be liked or disliked by the reader," James replies, choosing to look at his book and not the man in front of him.

"Is that so?" Mr. Rochester muses, and he sets his book aside. "Well, in that case, perhaps it's fruitless for me to attempt reading this one again. I honestly wasn't very fond of it the first time around."

"Why not? What it too dry?" James remarks offhandedly as he reads a passage he doesn't pay attention to and turns a page.

"No; it was far too sexual," Mr. Rochester says as simply as he might comment on the weather, but his words make James' face flush.

James makes a small cough into one hand. "I will be sure not to pick it up, then."

"You don't fancy romance novels, Mr. Eyre?" Rochester says, and James can almost hear the smirk in it, even though he refuses to look upward and see if a smirk is even on the older man's face.

"I prefer mystery and suspense novels," the tutor replies with a tone he hopes isn't too awkward. "Although the occasional adventure novel isn't one I protest either. Anything with heroes, heroines, villains, and action to behold is what I enjoy reading about."

"Because your own life isn't exciting enough, is that it?" the other man retorts, and when James does peer up from his book, he sees a raised eyebrow and a slight glint in Mr. Rochester's eyes, but that could only be the flickering firelight paired with James' imagination.

James nods calmly, not taking any offense to the question. It's true, after all. He replies, "In a manner of speaking, yes. No one's life is ever entirely dull, but I do find thrill in other's fictional lives. I always think, 'What would it be like to be robbed by thieves in the desert, only to track them down and discover an entire cult behind the operations?' –Things of that nature, inspired by a book. I wonder what it might be like to go somewhere else, see different things than the norm, and experience something entirely separate from the sort of lives I see and know all too well."

"You are a dreamer, then," says Rochester, and he doesn't look approving nor disapproving, so James deems it safe to nod.

"Of sorts, yes," James murmurs thoughtfully, "But none so extreme that I am delusional. On the contrary, I know my limitations, and I am well aware of realism. Yet a man can wonder, can't he?"

"He can," Rochester agrees, and he has that half-smile on his mouth again. He stands and puts away the book he doesn't care for, and wriggles his fingers idly as he skims the spines of a row of books, searching for something. He plucks it from the top, spins on his heel, and James adverts his gaze no not to be caught staring. "And in light of this conversation, I think I shall read one of my favorite adventure novels."

"May I see which one is so special that it warns the title of 'Mr. Rochester's favorite'?" James asks, setting aside his own book for a moment to quirk a brow at the older man moving to sit down across from him.

"Certainly," the homeowner complies, handing the book over for a moment.

"This, this is…" and James' mouth opens a bit in awe, and a smile graces his lips. Looking up and handing the book back, he says, "That's a favorite of mine, also. One of my very top favorites."

"Truly?" Mr. Rochester muses as James glances down into his own book.

Without much warning, James feels the tingle of someone standing very nearby, and when he peers upward, his slight smile fades. James' breath hitches, and he finds the older man leaning directly into his personal space over his book.

"And what do you like about it? Because it's very intriguing that you and I love the same tome."

And James honestly can't locate a single word in his vast vocabulary to fill his mouth with a reply. So he swallows and slowly leans back in his chair, watching as Rochester remains in place, awaiting a reply. He thanks his luck stars that he doesn't stumble over his words as he answers, "The character development throughout the challenging events. I like that the author remembers to make the characters real and heartfelt even though there is much action going on around them that can be distracting in any other book but that one," and his eyes flicker down to the book in one of Mr. Rochester's dangling hands where his elbow rests on James' armrest. "Now then, sir, would you mind leaving me to read?" he says in as stable a tone as he can muster.

Michael Rochester is a man of respect, so he obeys and removes himself from James' personal space, backing off to return to his chair and get settled in his book, their shared favorite. An aftershock of a shiver runs through James, and he ignores it, because it is entirely inappropriate to be feeling such things for a fellow _man,_ let alone his _employer._

And they read in silence for the next two hours until Mr. Rochester retires for the night, and James does the same, slipping in his bedroom with a wayward glance in Mr. Rochester's direction before he shuts the door.

0o0o0

James wakes to the scent of smoke in the air.

He's shaken from bed like a coconut from a palm tree. He instantly leaps from it, tossing back the covers violently and racing for the door, forgoing a candle as he bolts down the hallway in his nightclothes.

He doesn't know why he expects anyone else to be wake; most people are not as light sleepers as he, and some people don't wake because the smoke lulls them to sleep. But still, James is bursting into the bedroom leaking smoke, and he finds that it's Mr. Rochester's, his fireplace ablaze, his pipe in the floor beside it, and idly James wonders if the pipe was knocked over and a few of its embers connected with the fireplace's and spread to the rug.

But it doesn't matter how it began, because James knows two things: one, that he needs to wake his master, and two, that he needs to put out the roaring flames.

"Mr. Rochester! Mr. Rochester, _please,_ wake up! There's a fire, there's – _Michael, get up_!" James says, simultaneously using a wash basin's water and the pitcher beside it to dump on the fireplace, and then running to rip the drapes from a window to smother the fire, throwing the heavy fabric down and stomping on it madly with his bare feet. And all while shouting over the sound of the crackling fire to wake the other man.

Mr. Rochester stirs into full awareness the second he hears his first name. He does a double-take, coughs loudly and harshly as he breathes in smoke after sleep, and assesses the situation quickly. Soon, he is up and out of bed to assist Jennifer's teacher.

The fire doesn't go down without a fight. It takes the pair of them working together to distinguish it completely, but James had done most of the work by himself in the short amount of time he's been in Mr. Rochester's personal quarters.

They are both gasping for air from the speedy, laborious movements in the smoky, dark room. Mr. Rochester recovers first, turning his head and studying the young, brave man beside him. Something changes in his gaze, but James doesn't notice it as he slowly returns it.

"Are you all right, sir?" James wants to know, his words breathless and his eyes looking black in the lack of light.

Mr. Rochester stiffens. He moves to light a candle and hold it between them, but they both take a step back when they realize that they are seeing the other scantily clad in their nightclothes. Mr. Rochester clears his throat and speaks with a voice hoarse and raspy from sleep and smoke, "I'm just fine, thank you. You saved my life, James."

James blinks, the candlelight dancing in his eyes, and they almost look as green as Mr. Rochester's do in the dim lighting. "I… I suppose I did," he says, huffing a half-laugh without humor, and his face is in awe and disbelief. "But there's no reason to thank me, Mr. Rochester, I was only –"

" _Michael_ ," the older man corrects, stepping closer. "I heard you use it to wake me, and considering what you just did for me, I see it only fair that you continue to use my first name. You preserved my life, James Eyre; that makes you my equal, no matter _what_ societal principals say," he relays with conviction. "So from now on, if you please, I would like us to drop the 'mister' formality between one another."

James quite literally has no air left in his lungs. He closes his mouth when he realizes it's open without a reason, and for the time being, he can merely shake his head.

"You refuse to do so? Despite how dire this situation?"

"It's not dire any longer, Mr. Rochester," James retorts quickly, his voice quiet, just above a whisper. "I spared you from some danger, yes, but that hardly makes me your _savior_ or the like. And for as long as I work under you as a governor for your young ward, I indeed refuse to address you as anything less than _Mr. Rochester_ or _sir,_ " he states firmly.

Mr. Rochester looks amused. "And for as long as this night remains in my fond memory, James, I refuse to allow that. I will beg if I have to; call me 'Michael.' It is my name all the same."

"It is not the same!" James retorts, puffing up a bit, his hands clenching at his sides as he subconsciously takes a step closer. "To refer to you by your first name is… is _intimate,_ and not something I should – or could – bring myself to be with you."

"Should or could, perhaps not, but _would_ you? Would you be intimate with me if I allowed it? If I _told_ you to be?" Michael says rather daringly, and soon, it's only the warm candle between them, and James' eyes flutter slightly.

James has a few false starts with his words. Then, slowly, he says, "Good _night,_ Mr. Rochester." And he ducks out of the room, forcing himself not to glance back and where he left Michael standing.

And his fists are still clenched, and in his absence, Michael blows out the candle and returns to bed, his mind just as swamped as the young man's who saved his life.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here I go, getting a bit off-course, but not entirely, from the film.

"Miss Jennifer? What ever is the matter?" Zoë asks as she pauses in her dusting to glance down at the girl.

The blonde sighs and mumbles into her arms, her English still rough, "Master Rochester is leaving again soon. I do not be wanting him to leave; I shall miss him muchly."

The exotic-looking girl smiles minutely and nods her head, setting her duster on the table and crouching down to be nearly eye-level with the French girl. "I understand, honey," she says with a pat to Jennifer's knee. "He's like your father, so you'll miss him. But he will come back; he'll always come back."

"I know, but even _Monsieur_ Eyre –"

"What about me?"James cuts in, entering the room swiftly and casually as he brings with him the usual papers and books for the French girl's education. He sets them down on the wooden desk the little girl is resting her head on, and he kneels down on one knee beside her. "Ah, but wait; is something amiss?"

"I best be off; there is much dusting to be done!" Zoë excuses herself with a brief nod and a toss of her dark, Spanish hair. She leaves the pair to speak amongst themselves and begin their lessons.

Alone, Jennifer looks at James very carefully, as if inspecting him or trying to see into his mind. The expression on her young, rounded face is tender. "I was about to saying –"

"About to _say,_ " James corrects quietly.

"I was about to say," she amends automatically,"That, like me, you will miss Master Rochester when he leaves in days coming."

"In the coming days," James corrects again, but his voice is even softer, and he slowly lifts himself from the floor to half-spin into the chair beside Jennifer's. He sighs and closes his eyes, dropping his forehead into his fingers, rubbing lightly across the faint creases. "…I know. I am all too keenly aware of how intensely I might wind up missing him, despite my best efforts not to."

"Why do you not want to miss him? He is good man, like you are good man, _Monsieur_ Eyre. I care for you both, and wish both to get along," Jennifer murmurs, and he doesn't correct her minor mistakes this time.

"Things are…" He fishes for the proper words to say what he means. "Not that simple," he says at last, giving up on his search and choosing instead to say it as lightly as he can. He sighs. "Now then, might we begin today's schooling? I thought we might start with math –"

"He is leaving tomorrow," Jennifer states, severing James' sentence in half. He blinks and stares at her. She goes on, "Will you say goodbye to him?"

"Uh… Mr. Rochester?"

"Yes! Who else?" Jennifer giggles. "When he goes away again, will you say goodbye?"

"I… suppose so, yes," James answers meekly. "Does it matter? He will return after a while." He doesn't hesitate as he changes the topic. "Back to your arithmetic, I think we should go over the times tables –"

"It matters muchly!" the blonde argues, a frown on her fair brows.

"'Muchly' it not a word, Miss Jennifer," James murmurs softly, adverting his gaze and fiddling with a quill on the corner of the desk.

Standing from her chair, her hands braced on the ledge of the desk before her, Jennifer stomps her foot in exasperation. " _Monsieur_ Eyre! Why are you being so stubborn? It matters _a lot,_ because Master Rochester is the master of this house, and we should respect him! So you will say goodbye to him, won't you? You will say goodbye to him with me tomorrow morning? He will like it if you said goodbye, and told him that you will miss him."

"…You are a very determined little girl, aren't you?" James replies at first with a baffled expression, but it soon melts into a warm smile as he nods his head. "All right, you win; I will approach him tomorrow morn and bid him farewell. Now then, may we please begin your lessons for today?"

Clearly self-satisfied, her smug smirk a sign of triumph, Jennifer sits back down and scoots close to the desk, picking up an ink pen and declaring, "Ready! Let us begin."

And James can only shake his head and huff a laugh or two at her, because she is decidedly equal parts annoying as she is adorable.

0o0o0

The following morning, servants are helping Mr. Rochester prepare for his next trip, but this one, he says, will be far shorter in time than the last, and when he returns, they will have a get-together with a few of his colleagues and friends, and it will be a party of sorts.

Right as he is about to take his leave on his horse, Jennifer stops him with a tug on his coattail. Michael pauses and smiles at her, stooping down to her level and allowing her to give him a peck on the cheek, because while he can be a moody man, is far from an unfeeling one.

"Goodbye, Master Rochester. Travel safely," she says, her English ever improving by the day as she uses it more and more.

"Thank you, child. I will be as safe as possible. And goodbye; I'll be home before the month is out, if all goes well," Michael replies, and he glances past her at James for a moment, and it makes James tense where he stands with his hands clasped behind his back. Michael rises, and quite clearly, he says to James, "Do I not get a farewell from you?"

James visibly dithers his time, shifting from foot to foot on the soft dirty road outside the front of the house. He glances away, then back again, and after a quick nibble to the inside of his bottom lip, he steps forward, smiling, and removing a hand from behind his back to offer in a shake. "Farewell, Mr. Rochester."

The older man takes the tutor's hand, yanks him closer even while others are watching, and murmurs just loud enough for James to catch, "To you, I am 'Michael;' remember that." Taking a step back and releasing James' hand, Michael returns smoothly, "Until I return, James. Take care of Jenny for me, won't you?" And he flashes a quick smile, one that makes James' heart cease to beat for a failing second.

When James breathes again, Jennifer is smiling happily at him, taking his hand and leading him back into the mansion. James tries to remember how it feels to have a clear mind; he tries in vain, however, because now that Mr. Rochester is out of sight, he refuses to leave James' mind.

0o0o0

No one seems to notice very much how James lingers around windows, peering every so often out at the horizon, and no one seems to care very much that he is growing increasingly anxious as the weeks pass.

Three of his best handkerchiefs have been wrinkled to all Hell with his incessant hand-wringing with the squares of cloth from his chest pocket tangled between his palms and fingers. He develops the habit of cracking his knuckles to help the strain, and he doesn't even realize that he is doing any of this, and no one seems to see it, either.

Save for Anne-Marie.

"Is something troubling you, Mr. Eyre?" she requests to know, sitting down beside him one evening in the library, noting that he isn't connected with the words his eyes are passing over on the page of a book he's had in his lap for the past hour.

James looks up, jerking backward in his chair. "Oh, ah, hello. How long have you been in here?"

"Long enough, dear," Anne sighs. She shakes her head at the young boy. "Isn't your birthday soon?"

He looks away. "Passed. It was a week ago."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Anne-Marie gasps, shaking a finger at him afterward. "We would have made you a cake, or –"

"Nineteen is hardly an age-marker. We can do something special next year, when I'm twenty. For now, I'm content. But thank you; your sentiments are felt, Miss Anne."

She sighs. "I suppose you have a point, but it's nice to have one's birthday recognized in some way, at the very least." She turns her head and looks him over. "My, it's so hard to believe that you are merely nineteen, Mr. Eyre. You have a very mature face and physique; you look like you're twenty-four or twenty-five already. I hope this means you will age nicely and not too quickly, but nevertheless, your maturity is becoming. You're a fine young man, Mr. Eyre. Why have you not sought out a bride yet? Courted anyone?"

James laughs weakly and sets down his book. He leans forward, elbows on his thighs, and his hands loosely laced together and dangling in front of him. "I don't have much interest in any of that yet, and for that matter, I could ask the same of Mr. Rochester. A man of his age, owning an estate like this? Why is he not married?"

"He was, some time ago… But his wife died of a nasty case of influenza. They never had any children, and he never remarried," Anne-Marie replies quietly. She looks woeful as she adds, "She had been my closest friend. And Mr. Rochester wanted to keep memories of his wife close, so he offered me a job here as one of his servants. I couldn't refuse him."

"Oh, my… You have my sympathies," James replies genuinely. "As does Mr. Rochester."

She nods, dabbing her eyes with a clean corner of one of her cleaning rags. "Yes, well. He stopped having interest in women, and now I think he only wants people around him. Not all of the time, of course; he often prefers his solitude, but he took in Miss Jennifer recently, and you, and added a few workers like Zoë, and now he is having a get-together of lords and ladies and the like come next week or so when he returns, so there is all that," Anne replies, standing from her chair. "Anyhow, I will leave you to your novel, Mr. Eyre. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Miss Anne-Marie," James answers warmly, and grabs her hand and kisses it before she goes, and she smiles at him.

"Goodnight," she repeats, and just like that, her presence is missing from the library, and James is riddled once more with his own thoughts, surrounded by the scent of paper bound in leather.

0o0o0

There are too many people around. James hasn't even seen heads or tales of Mr. Rochester, even though the man came back yesterday, friends in tow, and today, many others have arrived, and it's a full house in the lowers levels of the mansion, people drinking and laughing and playing piano and singing along and chatting to one another.

James forces down impolite grimaces and blanches as he passes people with too much musk, cologne, or perfume on, and inhales the reeking scent of alcohol here and there. James never cared much for anything but light, fruity, white wines and bubbly, sweet champagnes; everything these guests are drinking are distinctly separate from those, and it's making James drunk just from the stench of it.

He breaks free of the crowd and finds himself in a dimly lit, small room between hallways. He hears a familiar voice and goes rigid. Mr. Rochester enters from the other hallway, speaking in soft tones to a man he knows, giving the man a brief hug and a smile before turning around and spying James standing where he is in the near-center of the room.

They can't say a thing to one another, however, because a woman sweeps into the room from behind James, a glass in her hand. "Oh, Michael, there you are! What are you doing in a dark place like this? Come, come! You're the host, are you not? You should be with all the lights and songs!"

"January, I –" Mr. Rochester tries to protest, and James steps out of the way of the beautiful blonde woman and grants her entry as she drags the man by his arm. They seem about the same age, give or take a year or two, and she is indeed very, very lovely. James wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Rochester had at least interest in _her,_ if not any other woman, simply because she called him _Michael_ and he didn't hesitate to use her first name as well, and they look like they _suit_ one another.

In a jealous rage that James would never admit to having, he turns and darts out of the room and down the hall, his fast-walk damn near being on the brink of a sprint. He huffs something under his breath, something akin to, 'How could I have been so foolish?' or the likes of, 'How could I have missed him so terribly when I knew this would happen?' while he returns to his bedchamber, shutting his door behind him and sliding down its length as he leans back against its sturdy, polished wood.

He would have gone to the library, but most likely someone is in there already, smoozing it up with another, and it irks James that he is feeling this way, so close to being like a _woman,_ and he punches the floor beside him.

"James? Did you make that sound just now?" comes a voice through the door, and James' eyes fly open (he hadn't even noticed he closed them as tightly as he had). He scrambles to his feet and spins about, throwing the door open and blinking at the person on the other side of it. The man smiles. "Evening, Mr. Eyre."

"Evening, Mr. Rochester," James murmurs, and steps aside to let his host inside. Michael shuts the door politely, and walks over to a candelabrum on a stand.

"No light, James? How ever can you find your way around in the dark?" Michael muses, and takes out a set of matches from his coat pocket, striking one against the wood grain and lighting the candles on the brass holder. "There. Now I might see you a bit better," he says. He picks it up after slipping his matches back into his pocket, and the way he turns and looks at James makes the tutor's breath catch and his heart, once again, make a strange palpation.

"You should be out there with your guests, _Michael_ ," James remarks, and this is only the second time he has used his employer's first name, and it isn't done out of fondness. It's done out of spite, but Michael doesn't recoil or cringe at the sting of the tone, but instead quirks a corner of his mouth in amusement.

"None of them matter very much to me," Mr. Rochester replies. He takes a couple steps forward, and James holds his ground, fists clenched at his sides as per usual around the taller man. "You, however, matter." His gaze is unwavering in his pause. Then, "Did you miss me while I was away?"

"No," James answers quickly.

Too quickly.

Michael smiles. "You are lying, James."

"And what if I am? What point is there in stating whether or not I thought of you or felt a thing regarding you whilst you were gone? People have passing thoughts and feelings quite often about people they aren't seeing in the present, or on a daily basis, quite often; it's a common occurrence. So tell me, Mr. Rochester, what point is there in me telling the precise truth? For all you know, I hardly thought of you at all. And I certainly did not _miss_ you. Missing would imply that you filled a void in me, and missing would imply pining for you to return. Neither is true, so in a matter of speaking, I am _not_ lying," the nineteen-year-old says in a rush, his cheeks feeling warm (from the candles; it must be from the candles) and his tone breathier than he would have liked.

Michael's eyelids lower and his pupils dance over James' face, the reflection of candlelight in them even more alluring, and James has to take a short step backward to keep from growing heady under that gaze.

"I cannot argue with that. You are master debater, James Eyre. But is it too much to reveal that I _wish_ to think you thought of me, perhaps pined for me, and that you _did_ miss me? Is it even too much to _ask_ for **one** of those passing thoughts to be of me, or too much to _hope_ that I **did** fill some space in your heart, however little or unimportant the gap may be?" the older man breathes, and he is stepping closer again, holding the candles off to the side, setting them down on a bureau just to the right of the entrance.

James' shoulder blades hits the closed door, and he hadn't even realized he was being backed into it until he feels the handle painfully bump his hip. He stares up at Michael, and James can feel from the outside-in that his expression is a blank one, save for his parted lips. He's glad for this, because he would hate to expose the boiling feelings rising up inside his abdomen to speed up his heart.

"I do not understand, Mr. Rochester," James murmurs, and he licks his lips to help free his dry mouth up to speak further. He swallows inaudibly. "Why are you saying these things? I am a _man._ I am not someone like the blonde woman I saw you with, nor am I like your wife, God rest her soul. You are acting as though, as though –"

"You know of my wife?" Michael says suddenly, leaning back and hardening his expression. "…Who told you?"

"Anne-Marie," James answers truthfully. "She told me how the woman passed away, and how she and your wife had been friends. She also spoke of your disinterest in women and remarriage since then. So, I ask again, Michael: _why me?_ " And his tone is very serious, and his resolve secure. He knows now what he needs to hear, needs to discover.

"You are unlike anyone I have ever known," Michael answers in a quiet, chary tone. His eyes wander to James' waistcoat, and he idly brushes his fingers over a wrinkle in it, smoothing it out, making James shiver. Their eyes reconnect, and the low lighting casts contrasting shadows on the plains of Michael's face. "So surely, you realize by now, James, why I pay so much attention to you."

James is milliseconds away from closing the minute chasm of space between them and giving in to temptation, but he somehow maintains his self-control and breathes outward right a tight jaw and flaring nostrils. "I wish to go to bed, Mr. Rochester," he comments as if this were any other night and any other moment. "Please, return to your guests, pay attention to someone else with preferably different genitalia than your own, and leave me in peace. Neither of us are thinking clearly."

"If this isn't thinking clearly, then I wish to never lift the fog from my mind," Michael murmurs. "However," he adds as he ducks his head for a moment and steps toward the door, James moving out of his path, "I will respect your wishes and leave you be. Goodnight, _James Eyre_."

And the way James' name rolls off Michael's tongue and floats from his mouth to James' ears is nothing short of sinful, and it makes James' entire body shiver, his lower gut lurching with desire, and he quickly locks his bedroom door, closing out Mr. Rochester and everyone else, as he undresses himself and retreats to the safety and shelter of his bed. It takes every last ounce of strength James possesses to ward off a variety of unholy and romantic thoughts alike from his mind concerning the man who had just been in his room.

Then, finally, James' mind succumbs to sleep, and for once, he doesn't know what the following day will bring.


	5. Five

"You wish to see your aunt? The one you left?" Mr. Rochester says disbelievingly, frowning slightly at James' request.

"Yes; solely for a visit. I will come back and finish teaching Jennifer, loyal to our verbal contract. But my aunt is ill, and she has sent for me, disregarding our…" He clears his throat, "Previous disagreements," he settles, figuring that this is the gentlest way to describe his past with his aunt. "There is something she needs to tell or show me, as expressed in her letter."

"How long will you be gone?" Michael asks, his voice gentle.

James softens a wee bit. "Approximately two to three weeks. You will hardly miss me."

"I sincerely doubt that," Mr. Rochester grunts under his breath. Louder, directed toward James, he says crisply as he folds his hands behind his back where he leans against his desk in his private study, "I suspect you will require traveling money? And you haven't yet received a paycheck."

"Er, no… No paycheck as of yet. And yes, I will need the money for my journey –" and he cuts himself off.

"James? What is it?" the master of the households asks, his brow lowered with concern.

James glances down at his boots for a moment, then back up at Mr. Rochester's stubble-chinned face. "I had been about to say 'my journey home,' but I realized that I do not consider that house a home. This place… it is my home, now. I care more about Jennifer and Miss Anne-Marie and Miss Zoë more than I have ever cared for my brutish cousins and icy aunt."

"And what of me? Do you not care for the person who shelters you?"

And there should be offense in that, but James can't hear it. Instead, he hears tones of slight desperation and curiosity and amusement. He shakes his head, smiling slightly. "Of course I care for you, Mist– Michael," he amends, meeting Mr. Rochester's gaze as he says the older man's name, and it makes Michael stands up straight and have that shimmer in his greenish-blue eyes. "You above the others, as a matter of fact, because I am grateful to you for permitting me to stay here and have this job and be with the people I have grown so immensely fond of."

"However?" Michael prods, raising an eyebrow, hearing the phrase in James' tone.

James sighs and looks away. "However, I dislike thinking how far my care for you extends, and I pray this time apart form you will help me sort out my thoughts." He snaps back into attention like a soldier caught acting out of line. "And now, if you please, sir, I would like to be paid so I may be on my way this afternoon."

"Very well," Mr. Rochester agrees, and doesn't comment on James' words outside of producing a slip of paper money.

"This… this is too much," James whispers, looking at the outstretched bills. "I have not yet made this much since coming here, not according to the initial pay Anne-Marie said I would be making."

"I upped the price. Jennifer has never learned this quickly with anyone else."

"…You mean to say there have been others before me?" James inquires with a slightly raised tone, a frown on his brows.

Michael can't suppress a short laugh. "No, but it seems you would have taken that as a response." He shakes his head and wags the money. "I don't have any change. Take this. Please, James; it's the least I can do for you after all you've done for me."

"Is this about putting out that fire in your room one night? I told you that wasn't something that earned any debt –"

"Quit fighting me on this and damn the bloody money," Mr. Rochester grumbles, losing his patience. James immediately shuts up and grabs the paper bill from Mr. Rochester's hand. "Be on your way, James, and have a safe trip there and back. I will look forward to seeing you again." As James turns to leave the study and finish packing, he hears the older man add, "And for the record, I wish you the best on whatever transpires at your aunt's. Don't ever think otherwise."

Frowning in puzzlement, the governor is about to turn and ask what his employer means, but the opportunity passes and James has no choice but to turn and head down the hall, money clutched tightly in hand, and his face falling easily into a lonely expression.

Three weeks or so apart from Mr. Michael Rochester? What made James think he could sort of his feelings in such a short amount of time? What's been building… it's taken a few months itself, but James fears he knows what's going on, and he wishes he didn't, because, for God's _sake,_ it's not at all moral to be heading in such a direction when another _man_ in involved.

James shudders what the public would think if they knew, and while he packs the last of his possessions for the trip, he begins thinking on what his aunt will have to say or show him.

0o0o0

"James… I… I know I've wronged you in the past, but… I want to set things right again," his aunt says, her voice thin, body frail, and everything about her screaming exhaustion and sickness. She's dying; the doctor has even said so. He's been here a week, looking after her and getting a diagnosis from the town's medical physician, and sure enough, his sadly-not-so-beloved aunt is at her end. "If only… out of respect for your uncle's wishes. There is… something I never told you. Go into my letterbox, would you, and take the one on top with your name on it."

It's a last will and testament. James' parents' entire house belongs to him, but as long as he was in his aunt's care, it was all hers. And now it will be his again, if he so chooses to take it, riches and expenses and all.

"I could call you some profanity, Aunt Sarah, but I don't think even you deserve something as high as my words," James says coldly, and she nods numbly, looking away with watery, dreamy eyes. She will die any hour or day, now.

"I don't expect you to waste a thought on me, James. We tormented you, and I know it. My children and myself alike. We treated you horribly, and to an extent, it is my one regret, but the damage is done, isn't it?"

"It is," James retorts with a steely face. His eyes burn a hole into her skull, and for the first time in her life, she is truly afraid of him. She looks away again.

"Then please, take the house, James. Take whatever you like of it. It's yours, according to that will, and there is not a think I can do about it, now," she replies breathlessly, and she coughs, and James wonders if she might even die today.

"I cannot, Aunt. My home is elsewhere. Summon a lawyer, and I will sign the rights to my parents' old home to your children; they can make better use of it than I." His stare is almost deadly, but there is some level of sympathy in it, and Sarah Reed clings to that scrap of sympathy amidst the well-deserved cruelty. "I was orphaned, and that makes me not quite part of this family, now, doesn't it? And truthfully, I don't want to be a part of this family. I have a much better one waiting for me in another manor kilometers upon kilometers from here."

And, that said, he exits the room with confident strides. He feels a burden from his past being lifted, even as his aunt shrieks something offensive at his back, and he smirks to himself.

The following day, he signs over the will, packs that night, and by morning, his aunt is dead and James isn't staying for the funeral as he returns to Rochester's mansion with almost a week to spare.

0o0o0

"Hooray, _Monsieur_ Eyre has returned!" Jennifer cheers as she comes running out of the mansion in her bare feet, running up to James' horse and hugging his leg before he can even climb down.

Chuckling, James dismounts the beast and scoops the preteen girl into his arms and gives her an affectionate, brotherly embrace before setting her down again. "And how have you been these past few weeks?"

The blonde giggles and blushes minutely, clasping her hands behind her back and stating proudly, "I have been practicing my English by myself!"

"Have you? That's wonderful," James answers, just as proud of her and she is of herself. He pats her on the head, and she takes his hand and leads him back into the house while other servants take his bags for him, even when he glances back and protests, because he's he himself a servant of sorts, not a guest?

They have dinner together that night, a rarity for the live-ins at the Rochester residence, and Mr. Rochester attends the meal, and so does one of the guests from the party, James notices. Her name is January Ingram, and he dislikes her more and more as the dinner plays out, because he wants to know why she's stayed here since the get-together, and why she's at Michael's right-hand side from the head of the table, and why he feels so inanely envious of her when he shouldn't.

Throughout supper, however, James doesn't miss the way Michael occasionally peers James' way. They are side-glances, ones hardly noticed except when they are being specifically looked for, and nothing more. But they are enough to make James' heart race each time their gazes lock out of the corners of their eyes, and to himself, James wonders what his dear Mr. Rochester will have to say _this_ time around.

As it happens, he doesn't have to wait very long. The following afternoon, James is walking with Jennifer by his side toward the wildflowers in the field near the woods on the massive property. James spies Mr. Rochester speaking to January, her blonde locks falling in her face, Mr. Rochester politely brushing them away while he continues to chat with her.

Irked by the sight, James turns abruptly and tells Jennifer to pick and nice bouquet for hard-working Anne-Marie while he has a word with the master of the house. Jennifer shrugs and agrees, trying, no doubt, to wrap her inexperienced mind around what might be happening before her eyes. Yet she has never heard of men dancing around one another like two coy people in love, so she remains blissfully ignorant and picks her posies, checking on James' progress every so often while she selects the brightest-colored and least-wilted wildflowers.

January is handed into a coach, and as the thing wheels away, led by two horses and a driver, James paces after Mr. Rochester along the ivy-covered wall and stairs back to the house. "Why did Miss Ingram leave? Were you not going to marry her? Isn't _that_ why she was here?"

Michael stops dead in his tracks, pivoting in the dirt and giving James a once-over before standing his ground and clicking his tongue, cocking his head slightly as he does so. "Let me answer those with a question of my own: why the sudden interrogation, James?"

"Straightforward curiosity," the younger man retorts with a cross of his arms over his chest in defense. "So would you kindly answer the questions? I mean no harm."

"Perhaps you don't, but you are being a bit demanding of me, Mr. Eyre. Something must be bothering you," and he seems damn near _smug_ about it. It sets James' teeth on edge.

"The only thing, _sir,_ that is currently bothering me is your lack of cooperation. Please, I beg of you, tell me what is going on?"

Mr. Rochester sighs and places a hand on his waist while the other fixes his hair. Glancing upward at the sky, he answers languidly, "If you must know, Miss Ingram is an old friend of mine. We grew up together, in part. Her husband recently left her – downright _abandoned her,_ the bastard, while she had been _with child_ – and so, while she was recovering from the unceremonious and _unusual_ divorce, her baby boy in the care of her sister for the month, she stayed here with me. I had no intentions of courting her, nor of marrying her."

"Unusual," James repeats after a moment. "That much is true. Divorces are… well, entirely foreign. I did not know they even existed until recently. But they nearly never occur, thank God." He sighs, taking a step backward. "I apologize, Mr. Rochester. I had no right to demand such things of you, and I don't know what possessed me to do so. Miss Ingram has my sympathies and best wishes."

He moves to leave, but Michael stops him, reaching out with a hand. "Wait."

James halts obediently, although he refuses to turn about-face just yet. Instead, he blinks his blue eyes into the cloudy sunlight, seeing Jennifer a ways away, a blot amidst faint green and flecks of colorful blossoms, and he almost smiles at her. But this is only a flicker of a thought, because soon he hears Michael talking again, and he remembers why he stopped.

"Are you so naïve that you can't tell who truly captures my heart and interest, who sparks my desire, who I wish I could marry? Do you honestly not _know_?" he dares question, and his voice is not a meter behind James, and it's about all the tutor can bear.

"I shan't think who," James mumbles, and just like that, he breaks into a brisk walk and traipses over to where Jennifer is standing, a full, arranged bouquet of wildflowers in her hands.

"Shall we give these to Miss Anne?" Jennifer asks, peering just beyond her governor for a moment to look at the way her master is storming off in the other direction across the grounds, his figure becoming smaller by the second. She peers back up at James and keeps her thoughts to herself. What does she know? Jennifer thinks. After all, she's just an eleven-year-old girl; she doesn't at all understand the affairs of the adults around her, and it's best not to be a brown-noser.

"Indeed we shall. Let us go into the house, find a vase, fill it with water, and present it to her, yes?"

"Yes!" Jennifer pipes up readily. She skips beside James back into the house, and knows she made the right choice in not asking about the young man and her master, because she can tell by the look on poor James' face that he wouldn't have a proper answer anyhow.


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sex.

"James? Wait a moment – _James_! James, please – speak to me! You have not uttered a word to me in a _fortnight_!" he says loudly, catching up to where the young man is pacing along the grounds.

They cease walking and meet near one of Michael's personal favorite trees, gnarled and large and with a bench around it. He grabs James by the wrist, stopping him in his tracks before he can turn and walk off. His eyes burn into James', and James looks pointedly away, at the ground.

Mr. Rochester is not pleased. His tone is wounded and irritated as he tells the shorter man, "I know you are aware how long a fortnight is, but I must reiterate: _fifteen_ days and _fourteen_ nights? Honestly, Mr. Eyre, that is far too long to avoid stumbling across the master of the household, and certainly too long to open your mouth to say so much as a _word_ to them." He pauses, his voice dropping an octave as he releases James' wrist. "Why have you been hiding yourself?"

Painstakingly slowly, James raises his eyes to meet Michael's. The sun is passing in and out of the clouds, and the breeze is enough to ruffle James' dark hair. "I haven't been hiding, Mr. Rochester. I have been absorbed in Jennifer's studies, letters coming to me regarding family affairs of the family I am trying to distance myself from, and the taking on of chores with the others to help make up for all the money you insist on giving me for my otherwise meager services. There hasn't been time to join you in reading in the library, or seeing you at the occasional supper you attend."

And with that, he is about to leave, about to make those few sentences explanation enough.

But that response doesn't satisfy Mr. Rochester in the least. He frowns and catches James again, keeping him where he is. "That isn't what I meant, so permit me to rephrase: why have you been _ignoring me?_ And quite _blatantly,_ might I add," he tacks onto the end with a knowing shift in his tone.

"I have most certainly _not_ been ignoring you, sir," James retorts confidently, despite the quickening of his heart over the stab of guilt he feels for wounding the man with such a feeling of purposeful disregard. "I have merely been…" He sighs, casting his gaze elsewhere again. "Busying myself to keep from pondering too deeply."

"And why won't you allow yourself to ponder too deeply?" Michael challenges, and James's eyes shoot upward, meeting Michael's own.

"I am not an unfeeling automaton, Mr. Rochester. I feel sadness and rage, jealousy and bliss, senses of right and wrong, and brief touches of guilt, shame, and love. I feel as vast a range of emotion as any other human, and yet you either seem to think me unfeeling and therefore able to be toyed with, or ignorant of feeling and therefore able to be controlled. But I am here to tell you, _sir,_ that I have just as much heart and strong morals as anyone else, and therefore refuse to be teased and taunted with your passes and hints!" James replies stubbornly, taking a step forward.

Michael blinks, momentarily bewildered, and slowly brings up a hand to James' welling eyes to swipe a leaked tear away from the corner. "I know you are not an automaton, James Eyre. You are a man of wonder, a man od more heart than I deserve to be acquainted with, let alone share a part of."

He grasps both sides of James' face and steps closer still, his gaze unwavering and bizarrely tender. James sinks into the hold, his eyes fluttering and turning impossibly bluer as he reaches up a hand to close over one of Michael's.

The older man presses on, "But I _do_ wish to be part of your heart, James. I know what you must think: what I feel for you and what I pray you return for me in equal sentiment is… _wrong._ I hate to use the word, yet I assume it's the one word you think of when you imagine two of the same sex being in love. And, true, society may frown upon it, and I could never marry you because of it, but that does not make it wrong. Over the decades there has been homosexuality hidden in the eaves or under floorboards, locked away like secrets. Ours might have to be a secret as well, but if you will have me, I will be the most faithful and true lover. I will honor and ravish you, and I won't hesitate to let you know each and every day how much I have come to care for you."

James somehow finds a sturdy root in his voice to cling to and keep his words calm and even. He relays firmly, "You are in my heart, Michael. I didn't mean for you to be, but you have made me fall in love with you, and I don't know whether or not to strike you for not coming outright with this sooner, or to refuse you, or whether or not I should cast caution to the wind and accept, no matter the circumstances, _because_ my sentiments for you are, indeed, returned."

Michael lets out a puff of air akin to a bittersweet laugh mingled with a relieved sigh, and he brings James's mouth to his, using the grip he still has on James' face. James' hand over the older man's drops to grasp the billowed sleeve of Michael's shirt, and he has never been kissed before, not like this, with so much passion and romance stealing his breath away.

The kiss lasts half a lifetime. James' head is lost in the feeling of it; Michael's arms wrapping around his torso, his own sliding around Michael's narrow waist, and their chests pressing together through layers of clothing. They kiss and kiss, parting for air only long enough to glance at once another before it continues, and the snowball effect of it makes it feel like time has stopped.

Michael's sideburns tickle James' jaw, Michael's moist breath warms James' face and neck, and Michael's tongue is singly the oddest and most addicting thing James has ever tasted. There is too much and not enough, and to James, it feels as though he has been exhaustedly dancing in a ballroom for months, and now, finally, he has found the right partner to dance with after only getting brushes past this person beforehand.

"Come, please, back to the house," Michael whispers, voice raspy with labored breathing, and James can hear his own heart pounding in his ears. "I have waited a long while. Most of the others have gone into town for the day or are too preoccupied to disturb us. _Please,_ James."

And He can hear how much Michael wants this, possibly _needs_ it, and the dominant part of James is just as eager and willing and ready to agree as the man in his arms. However, there is one matter that would comfort the recessive part of James that have lingering doubts and worries. "I shall give you this if, in return, you give me your word that I will be your only one, this deed like our private marriage to one another. I am a man of commitments, Michael Rochester. Whatever I partake in, I see it 'til the end, romances included. These are my morals, as you know."

Michael nods, smiling gently. "I do know. And I respect and agree with your morals, James. Aside from that, I wouldn't want another who isn't you for all my days, thus I will gladly accept that condition." He takes one of James' hands into his own and half-turns to lead the way back. "Now then, will you follow me back to my bedchamber?" and he has a mischievous grin on his face, eyes lit up considerably from the norm, and James can't help but to chuckle; it's done a tad nervously, James feeling just a wee bit giddy, but isn't that how it should be?

James nods his head, tagging along without another word.

0o0o0

It's as if a levee broke, and now the feelings and actions are flowing as freely as water, and rushing just as forceful and swift.

So when one of them pauses against the stone wall near the stairs, or a fence along the path, or a support beam on the porch, or any door or wall in the house on the way to Mr. Rochester's room to plant a kiss on the other's mouth (missing a fraction here and there in their haste), it isn't thought poorly of.

And if one of the maids sees anything, she knows better than to say a word of it to anyone; she would, if she saw, keep it to herself, because it isn't her business. But it's _highly unlikely_ anyone spotted anything, of course.

It's one rough shove into a wall in the hallway after another, mouths hotly pressing together, small nips of Michael's part on James' lips to make them even redder and plumper, until, during one of the turns, Michael is pressed up against his own bedroom door, fumbling for the handle on his right side, while James gladly suckles on a tender spot on Michael's throat just below his jaw. Michael gasps, trying to concentrate, and finally, the door handle gives, and they both go tumbling into the room.

James kicks the door closed, and as they struggle to stand up again, Michael is the one who starts to strip them of their clothing, beginning with their vests and waistcoats, unbuttoning and shrugging them away hastily. He works on James first before himself, although James does help undo Michael's cuffs and open up his billowy shirt. With a few grunts amidst panting breaths, they fall onto the bed, James straddling Michael, with their tops bare and their shoes missing.

Around a smothering lip-lock, James breathes, "So I am yours and you are mine, correct, Mr. Rochester?" and he's grinning, mostly in his lust-hazed eyes, and there is a resounding hum from the older man below him.

"Correct, Mr. Eyre," he teases in return, the titles all a joke, a play on how they once were. But Michael can't stand that any longer, so he grips James' hips and rolls them over, mouth attaching to the side of James' neck, near the base, his lightly stubbled chin brushing against the younger man's collarbone. "Now be quiet, James, and allow me to ravish you."

James moans lightly at that coarsely spoken phrase, Michael's voice gruff with need and harsh breathing. James submits himself to the sensations of hands roaming over his exposed skin, the touches of faintly calloused fingers and palms smoothing over his chest and sides feeling like everything intimate and warm that he has ever craved deep into the night when he used to be alone and only dreamed of how it would be to feel another, an equal, cherish and caress him so devotedly.

Lovers they may be, nothing would quite compare to being spouses, James knows, but he can settle for this. He gladly will, because the sensation of being pressed up against another heated body of flat, toned muscle and taunt skin is glorious. He can't get enough of the feeling of Michael's skin sliding over his own, and Michael's hot hand sliding along James' thighs over his trousers, the other holding him securely around the waist to rest on his back. He groans when Michael's hand finally cups and rubs over his groin through his pants.

"Please, Michael, do _not_ play games. We have done enough of that to one another," James whispers, a hint of demand in the backdrop of his tone, and it makes Michael growl lowly, turning them onto their sides as he starts to undo and tug down James' offending trousers.

"You are absolutely right," he answers gruffly, his impatience growing. He frees James of the confines of his pants quickly, and soon does the same to himself. And then all the barriers are gone, and in the sunlight streaming from between cracks in the curtains before the windows, they are open to one another, uncovered for the other to see.

James squirms, his stomach flipping once or twice partly out of nerves, and partly out of excitement. He can _feel_ the lack of barriers, the stripped feeling all too keen. He sucks in air through his mouth, legs closing up and body turning into Michael's, as if to hide.

"Michael," James murmurs around a kiss, his arms wrapped around Michael's sides, fingers pressing into Michael's shoulder blades, "You do know that I have never been with anyone before, don't you? Not a soul."

"I understand, James," the other answers gently, kissing James' temple as his hands work over James' skin, thumbing hipbones and gripping his rear, gliding over the smooth skin before slinking up and around to grasp James' manhood, beginning to pump him, finding him fully erect from over-stimulation that only comes with one's first time. "And if it is any consolation to you, I have not been with many, and all of them were women, so this is new to me as well. Relax into me, let me do as I please, and for God's _sake,_ I beg you to touch me."

James swallows and nods, closing his eyes and untensing his shoulders. He nuzzles his head up under Michael's chin, nose skimming Michael's sternum, and presses kisses to the older man's chest as he curls one arm between them, tucking it against his chest as he worms closer, his other hand seeking refuge first on Michael's waist, then slowly inching downward to timidly caress the man in return.

It's an odd thing, to touch someone else in such a private place; but James loves how it feels, relishes in being the only one to do this, the sole person graced with the privilege of pleasuring Michael Fairfax Rochester. He moans when Michael's hand on him increases speed, and it eggs him on to firmly seize and work Michael's own shaft, experimentally touching him. And it must be enough, because Michael is thrusting his hips forward into James' hand.

At some point, their hands fall away and cling to one another, fingers lacing and arms encasing one another as they move as one, grinding in a raw, personal way, their bodies humming in a sweat-slicked dance, writing together in bliss.

James loses track of himself, forgetting how to think coherently as his frame is electrified from the base and upward, sparks flying through his veins as a deep-seeded heat coils and grows in his lower abdomen, sending cold fire up through his thighs and into his groin. He moans loudly, hands clinging to what they can, fingernails digging into Michael's skin.

Michael reaches down, wrapping his hand around what he can of both of their lengths, and his mouth joins up with James' in a few messy, passionate kisses. "Together, as one," Michael utters in a tone coated so thickly with love through the intensity of the act that it makes James' heart sing, and with it, causes his body to cry out.

They bring one another into the abandon of oblivion, a brief throe of ardor dropping from Michael's lips in the form of James' name in the few briefs seconds of it.

When they return to themselves, it takes some effort to move to slip under the silken, cool sheets of Michael's bed, their body heat from when they were atop the covers being felt in splotches around them. Michael doesn't hesitate to bring James into his arms, and James feels more protected and cared for than he ever has in his life. More loved as well, the _most_ loved, and while a minute scrap of James thought he would feel used and cold after such an act, he knows now that it was a ridiculous thing to think, because Michael is beyond smitten, beyond in love, and James can _sense_ that.

"We might not make it to dinner tonight," James whispers, the seated satisfaction and exhaustion of love-making weighing down on him.

Michael sputters a breathy laugh and nods, kissing James' forehead as he holds him. He closes his glasz eyes. "No, we will not make it. However, no one will question the head of the household, and most might simply assume you are in the library. They need not know the truth, and we are safe. So sleep, James, and later I will personally fix you a meal if I have to."

The younger man laughs softly as well, closing his own eyes. "You are too kind, sir," he jokes. "Thank you."

"Anything during any time for you, my love," Michael mumbles, and soon, they are both succumbing to a well-earned rest.


	7. Seven

Surprisingly, things don't go horribly awry until three months following Mr. Rochester's and Mr. Eyre's personal "marriage" to one another. They were lucky, James thinks, to have lasted so long without being caught, despite how obvious they were being.

All it took was for a less than loyal maid, a new addition to the household, to spy their lingering touches and glances and come to a conclusion. And all that conclusion took was a few murmured words of gossip between farmers and people at the market for the word to spread of a homosexual scandal, and in no time, people with _names –_ the legacy sort with money and influence – caught wind of it, and that was all it took to separate them.

James hears it from Anne-Marie, the woman sympathetic. She, unlike most, is very accepting and understanding. She has seen the pair fall in love, but never breathed a word of it. And now this? She can't stand it, and yet she knows she has to be the bearer of bad news, because no one is about to directly confront Mr. Rochester about his affair. Instead, they are opting to ignore him. Never return a send, and never send out an invitation to any event. James noticed first, and when he came asking, Anne was the only one willing to give answers and not the cold shoulder.

"I had wished, by now, Mr. Rochester would have noticed the strange goings on – or, rather, lack thereof – and said something. But he hasn't. He's far too absorbed in you to care about much of anyone else, aside from, perhaps, his ward." And she sighs, shaking her head and bringing up a hand to her collarbones. She breathes deeply. "I only wish I could spare him the social ridicule, but how can I? And you… what can even be done by either of us?"

It's here, in this conversation, that James gets an idea. He feels a lightning bolt of unease and dread delve into his gut at the mere thought of it. Can he do this? Can he truly carry out this idea? It hurts, it _wounds_ and _paralyzes,_ but Michael doesn't deserve to be shunned by his peers and thought poorly of in society's eyes. And James certainly can't bear to think of how they would treat _him,_ a mere tutor of a little girl, if they ever came across him. Because unlike Michael, there wouldn't be freezing; no. Someone as minute as James? They would murder him. Quite possibly literally.

And so, with a heart full of dismay, James steels his expression and makes his way down the corridor, his steps feeling like he is walking on a tilted axis. He plants himself before the double oak doors of Michael's personal study, and slowly lifts a knuckle to rap upon the wood.

"Enter," comes his lover's muffled voice. James sucks in a breath and opens the door.

Michael is smiling at him when he spies him. "Ah, James. Good evening, love," he says once the door is closed. He stands and meets James, arms instantly coming around the shorter man's waist. He lens in for a kiss, forgotten pipe and book and cup of tea left near the fireplace.

James moves his head to the side, blocking the kiss, forcing Michael's lips to land on his temple instead.

Mr. Rochester frowns deeply, pulling backward and blinking. "Is something the matter? You seem distraught. Your face –" And his frown deepens, because he has never seen a more troubled expression on James' face in the past. "…James?"

"Please, Mr. Rochester, sit down," James instructs in a low octave, his voice grave and calm. Inside, he is trembling, his heart breaking with every move he makes.

"'Mr. Rochester'…? Are we back to that, again? You must really be upset," he tries to say in jest, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth, but it falls flat very quickly. He sits down in an uncharacteristically clumsy manner, his face the sheer image of the word 'fret.' James can't look him in the eye. "James, please, you are terrifying me with that expression. Won't you tell me what has you so distant? You are like a mountainside, rocky and cold. I don't like it."

James sits before the fire, on the edge of his seat. He looks anywhere he can but at his lover's face. "People have caught on, Michael. They know about us, about how we feel toward one another. And while you have neglected acknowledgement, I'm afraid I need to present it to you." Finally, _finally,_ he looks up. His eyes are straining to withhold tears, and Michael's eyes are darting back and forth all over James' face. "Everyone is shunning you, and all on account of me. Therefore, I have come to a decision."

Michael stands, dropping in front of James. He looks directly up into James' eyes. "What decision? What decision, James?" he demands to know, his voice low, graveling, harsh with desperation.

The younger man struggles to maintain his composure as he swallows thickly and glances away. "I am leaving. They cannot suspect nor prove our relationship if I am not present. They will think it a heinous rumor or a fling or a misunderstanding, because lovers would not leave one another, correct? So I will leave and spare you the humiliation and social rejection. I came here to tell you so, and say my farewells." He stands and tries to move around Michael. "Mr. Rochester; thank you for all your hospitality, and please give Jennifer my apologies, as she will need to have a new governor, or perhaps a nice governess. _Goodbye._ "

But just as he is about to leave, Michael grips him by the waist and hauls him back. He peers upward into James' eyes, holding both of his hands between his own larger ones. "How could you even suggest such a thing? Do you think I care for what others think of me, or whether or not I attend their balls and fancy dinners? I do _not_ , James Eyre. If you think I am a man of substance and not of heart, then perhaps you have misjudged me."

He pauses to give a shuddering breath. He bows his head and leans forward, his forehead just below James' sternum, his hands dropping James' and returning around his waist, encircling it.

Mr. Rochester goes on, "There is nothing in this wide world that quite compares to you. I would much rather have you than the rest of society. You are a rare and exquisite thing, James. And… and I _must_ have you for my own," he pleads, begging against the flat of James' stomach, his breath hot through James' clothes.

Tears do fall then, and James very nearly caves in. "No, Michael, _no_ – you don't understand. I can't – I just _can't_ –" and he tries to break away, tries so very hard to free himself and flee. He whimpers and shoves at Michael's arms, at Michael's head, pressed so lovingly against him, pleading over and over again.

"You speak of leaving, but this is nothing, James _, nothing_! No ill will can befall you if you stay, I swear to it. Please, James _, please_ –" and James is tearing away from him, and Michael can feel his heart breaking "– They know nothing, and we can set this right, and you can _stay_ –"

James whirls on his heel and raises his voice, hot tears burning down his face, "And _what_? Live a _lie_? Pretend that I feel nothing toward you, all while secretly slipping into your bedroom at night for midnight rendezvous? I think not, Mr. Rochester. I can't live like that, playing a double-life. It's been difficult enough as it is, and I wish things were different – oh, how I wish I could make the world indifferent toward love like ours, uncaring and even accepting like Anne-Marie is about it – but they are not. People are cruel, and they are _being_ cruel to you, and I can't stand by and allow that to happen. So, truly, _goodbye_ and _farewell_ , Michael Rochester."

And he rushes out of the study, flinging open doors and racing down the hall and running out through the front doors before anyone can stop him.

He hears Michael charging after him. He hears people calling his name.

"JAMES!"

"Mr. Eyre!"

" _Monsieur!"_

But it is too much. He runs and runs and keeps running, fleeing as far as his legs will take him. He crosses fields upon fields, passes towns. Then, finally, he breaks down and sobs onto a rock, feeling like a rotten fool. But he can't go back. For Mr. Rochester's sake and his own, as well as for his dignity and pride, he cannot go back. His decision is made, albeit poorly executed.

And his heart… _Oh,_ never has it ached like this. It's broken, James knows, and as he dries his tears and relaxes his face, he sinks against the rock and falls into a slumber of the dead. He is cold enough, at least, to be dead, and just as despairing.

0o0o0

When James wakes, he is wrapped in a blanket and in the kitchen of a small, wooden home. There is a woman there, and two younger boys who look unrelated. The woman says that her name is Rose, and that the two teenage boys are Lucas and Caleb, two brothers in bond, and by adoption. They have a third brother as well, James is told; a boy named Nicholas. Rose runs a school, and takes in the children who have no homes otherwise.

They ask him his name. He hesitates. "James… McAvoy," he lies, and it comes as easy as telling the truth. He forces a smile and wraps the blanket tighter around himself. "And if this is a school that you run, I will gladly help you teach it. I was once a private tutor to a young girl of a manor."

"Oh! Splendid, then!" Rose exclaims, and Lucas and Caleb are very open to the idea. They shake his hand and welcome him to the family.

And perhaps that is what this is, now; a new family, different than the abusive one of his childhood, and different than the delightful one he had just left.

0o0o0

"May I come in for a moment?" Rose asks politely. James is cleaning up after a class, and he smiles faintly.

"Yes, of course. What is it?" he inquires as he places things here and there.

"It's just… you've been here over half a year, now, and I wonder if you have fully adjusted or not," the auburn-haired woman murmurs. She delicately moves about the small classroom, picking up a few scattered papers and placing them on James' desk. She moves to the side, noticing an open drawer. She plucks a few sheets of paper and slides through them. "Are these yours?"

James looks back at her from erasing the chalkboard. He blushes. "Oh, ah – yes. Yes, those are mine," he replies. He steps to her and takes the drawings back. "They are only doodles. I am not an artist."

"No, not like Michelangelo, but these are still quite good. Why do you hide them?" Rose wants to know, and she doesn't notice how James' breath catches on the 'Michael' part of the Italian artist's name.

He clears his throat and puts the drawings away, returning to his chalkboard, ridding it of math problems and cursive writing lessons. "They are private, that's all. I like to keep the subjects of my sketches to myself. And besides that, I prefer to read than to draw."

Rose eyes his warily, but nods. "Ah, I see. Anyhow, I suppose I will be going. Although… you are comfortable here, aren't you, Mr. McAvoy?"

James barely nods. "Ah – yes. Yes, I'm just fine here, thank you. I like my students, my class – your home. It's all very… nice."

"I have the feeling that you miss the place you came from and refuse to ever speak of, but I will leave it at that. Good day, Mr. McAvoy."

"…Good day," he whispers as she turns and leaves the schoolhouse. He nibbles his bottom lip and sighs as he drops into his desk chair.

Does he truly seem that unhappy? And here he thought he was getting along so well with the lot of them, fitting in enough to nearly be a brother to the three adopted boys, and like another son to Miss Rose, even though he is twenty, now, and she is barely twenty-six. Still, he had thought…

James thought he might actually be happy again. But he forgot that one cannot confuse happiness with contentment. He is merely settling for this life, and it does not bring him pleasure the way his other life had.

His life with Mr. Michael Rochester.

James chokes down a sob threatening to escape, breathes in and out to keep his tears inside where they belong. He then stands, packs up, and heads home. Home to Rose, Nicholas, Lucas, and Caleb. Home to where he's been for the past half year-or-so.

Home to where Mr. Rochester is not.

0o0o0

It's winter again, and Rose is oddly suspicious of James' behavior.

She is mainly suspicious when he greets her at the door of his room in her home and he face falls from an excited expression, as if he had been expecting someone else.

(Which he had been. For a moment, amid the sleepy, hazy, lazy warmth of being before the fireplace in a rocking chair, James had slipped into a daydream in which there was a knock at the door he was facing. And when he got up and opened it, Michael was standing there, snow blistering about his well-dressed form – in the same clothes James left him in, like a picture from a memory – and they had kissed passionately and whispered, "I love you" to one another. But when he actually did snap form his daze and open the door… it was Rose, _only_ Rose.)

"You know, I was in the market today and heard a peculiar thing. There is a man by the name of Mr. Rochester searching for a James Eyre. And I thought, 'How odd; I know a James who came to me, but he is McAvoy, not Eyre.'" She pauses, stepping around him to sit in a chair near the fire. "–And stranger still, there is other news about this James Eyre as well; it seems he gave up a great deal of money to relatives who didn't deserve it, all to live with this Rochester fellow. And isn't it the darndest thing that those same relatives are willing to give it all back to him, making him rather rich? Yet he is nowhere to be found…"

Rose has always been a clever one. She looks at James a she moves to his previous seat, the one stationed across from his hostess. He bows his head, fingers laced in his lap. "…So what do you make of this, then?"

"I think this James Eyre should either return to his master or move on with the money his relatives are offering him as payment to whatever debt they owe him. Either way, I should think his happiness be in his best interests, and not the betterment of others, because it's absurd to be miserable when others won't mind if one if one is a bit selfish and utterly happy instead. Happiness is contagious, you know," Rose remarks, and just like that, she's standing up and leaving. "Anyhow, I thought I might share this with you. Goodnight, Mr. McAvoy."

"Goodnight, ma'am," he mutters in reply.

"Oh, and James?"

"…Yes?"

"Your last name is rather Scottish, I noticed, and yet you bare no Scottish accent," Rose smiles, and winks at him before slipping out the door and back into the cold again.

James isn't sure what happened, but he likes to think that it isn't a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.

0o0o0

"James, if it isn't too forward to say –" Rose begins, falling over her words. It's after supper, and everyone else is gone to ready themselves for bed. It's spring now, mild and cool and fresh.

He smiles brightly at her. "Never so, Miss Rose. What's on your mind?"

"I… would like you to come with me. The boys are moving out, and I am leaving the school to my sister. I had been hoping you would move with me. I was planning on going to France, and I know you speak French, as I do." She stutters as she adds, "And… I had been hoping, perhaps, if you came with me, we might marry."

"Marry?" James utters quietly. He clears his throat with a brief cough. "B-but, Miss Rose – aren't I more like a brother or son to you? That is all I ever meant to be. I never meant to lead you on, if that is what I did –"

She shakes her head. "No. No, you never lead me on. I know that you never once thought of me as anything but your hostess, but please, consider for a moment how we might be once we are alone together, able to see new sides of one another? You may come to love me as I have come to love you. Please, Mr. McAvoy; consider it, won't you?" and she places her hand over his.

He shakes his head, giving no answer. "I must prepare for bed," he murmurs, and exits the room swiftly.

That night, he debates with himself repeatedly. In the end, he wonders if it would be better to get away from England and all trances and remnants of Mr. Michael Rochester. It would spare James the heartache every time he thought of the older man, let alone the stab of pain when he saw or heard something that directly brought back a memory of the time they shared.

Eventually, after a long, long while of arguing with himself for days, watching everyone pack around him and hug him goodbye before they part, James has an answer.

He follows Rose out, down the path, both their suitcases in his hands. They are halfway between the house they left and the carriage awaiting them when James stops dead.

"What's amiss? I thought you made up your mind," Rose says, panic rising on her lovely features.

James sighs and shakes his head. "I honestly thought I could do it, Rose. I did. But you know my secret, don't you? You've realized it months ago. I'm James Eyre, not James McAvoy. I belong elsewhere."

She looks disappointed and a little put-off, but she nods solidly, blinking back tears. "Yes. Yes, I have seen this coming, I suppose. Go, then, James. Return to your master whom you love so much."

James tenses. "How did you know that I loved him?"

She smiles sadly, understandingly. "Why, it's positively written all over your face." She reaches out and touches his cheek. "Go, now. And don't stop until you reach him. Take your things," and she gesturing to the black suitcase in his right hand, "And I'll take this." And she removes her own light brown one from his left. "Farewell, Mr. Eyre."

He grins and leans over to give her a parting peck on the cheek. "Thank you, Rose. You truly are a rose amongst thorns. Others would have hated or been disgusted with me."

"Not me," she laughs without humor, a single tear streaking down her face this time. "And surely not the boys, either. They will miss being able to hear from you through me. Promise me one thing, James? Contact them now and then. Especially Nicholas, if you could. He looked up to you."

James nods, his own eyes watering. "I promise, Rose. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

And he left. He walked with her to the carriage, helped her in wordlessly, and then went in search of his own carriage to take back to Rochester's mansion. He didn't stop for a thing; he kept going until he was at the path through the woods that leads to the house.

He ran through it, imagining running directly through the front door and into Michael's awaiting arms.


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they live happily ever after. Somewhat. Mostly.

What awaits James instead of Michael's arms is instead the burnt remains of a once great house.

He feels as if from another body as his jaw unhinges and hangs loosely from his mouth in disbelief. He hears as if from another's lips as a thin, weak voice croaks, "No… This cannot be…" And he walks as if from the outside of himself toward the charred ruins.

He feels disconnected and small and gauche as he steps amid the blackened and crumbling structure. He wanders through it, picking up burnt versions of familiar items, and he finally falls to his knees in the room that was once the foyer.

James isn't sure how long he stays there, broken and cold on the bricks, tears dripping down to wet the ground. He doesn't know how much time passes as he peers around, seeing the sky and not a roof, feeling the fire dying inside him as it has inside this mansion.

After this immeasurable amount of time, James hears footsteps, light and gentle, and shuffling. The sun is much lower in the sky than he remembers it being as he sniffs and picks himself up off the ground. He turns to find Anne-Marie in a doorway, burnt curtains from a window being brushed aside.

"James Eyre!" she exclaims, pleasantly surprised. "So it is you! I saw the carriage and a man step out, but I hadn't thought –" and then she sees the full picture of devastation on his face as he looks at her, desolate and confused. "Oh, Lord Almighty," she whispers. "Come here, won't you?" she asks of him. "Come here, dear."

James doesn't need to be asked twice, even if she does say it twice. He is in her arms, head on her slender shoulder, the bone of it solid and assuring and warm beneath him, before she has a chance to speak much more. He doesn't weep again, but instead shivers with the drop in temperature, the chill of spring harsh on his back.

Anne-Marie, bless her, doesn't overload him with answers just yet. She instead stands there and soaks up all his pain like a sponge soaks water, and rubs his back in soothing circles over his clothes. And despite his layers, he feels so very cold, but Anne-Marie is slowly bringing him back from his zombified state.

"Come, dear, come walk with me. I have a story to tell you. And I know someone who would love to see you," she relays softly, kindly. He nods his head against her and pulls away enough to walk alongside her, although he keeps one arm around her waist, and she doesn't remove her arm from his shoulders.

They pace through the house, back out through the front door, even though there are plenty of fallen walls they could have easily exited through. But, somehow, it seems to preserve the function of the home by using its purposefully made exits instead of its accidentally created ones.

"So… you had a story to tell?" James whispers.

"Not yet, dear, not yet," Anne informs him. "Let us go to my little cottage on the hill, here, and I'll make you tea. And then you can hear what I have to say."

He nods dimly, feeling so vastly weary that he almost can't process it, the emotions too much to sift through at the moment.

They are in her home, cozy and surrounded by salvaged familiarity from the fire. Anne-Marie calls someone from the kitchen into the dining room, and James is met with the face of a slightly aged Jennifer. She squeals and embraces him, arms locking around his neck, and her petal-soft lips brush his cheek.

" _Monsieur_ James! I have missed you a great deal! How have you been?" she asks, and her English has improved more than James could have thought, but it _has_ been many months, just about a year, and he can't say he didn't expect as much; she's a bright little French girl, after all. And so pretty.

"Jenny, you look marvelous," James chuckles, touching her lightly curled blond hair, longer than before. "You're quite the young lady now, aren't you?"

She smiles. "I am. _Mademoiselle_ Anne has been taking very good care of me. And hear me speak! Is not my English much better?"

"It is," James agrees. He takes the sides of her head in his hands and bends her forward from where she stands before his seat to plant a kiss on her forehead. She lightly touches one of his forearms to keep balanced. Releasing her, he frowns and touches her hand. "…What is this?" And he gasps when he looks and finds a long burn, scar tissue now, along her forearm and the side of her hand.

She tugs down the short sleeve of her dress and hides her arm behind her skirts, on her side, near her back. "The fire. Master Rochester –"

"I think it will be best if I tell him, sweetheart," Anne-Marie cuts in tenderly, placing a hand on Jennifer's opposite shoulder. "Why don't you get some food started? I'm sure Mr. Eyre is hungry after his journey," she says. "And it is almost dinner hour. If you could fry some of that chicken we got at the market today in a pan and get out the loaf of bread we made this morning, that should be perfect."

"All right," Jennifer says agreeably, offering a small smile and a brief curtsey James' way. "I will see you soon, _Monsieur_."

Once she's gone, Anne takes a seat across from James at the petite, circular dining table. She folds her hands on its wooden surface and looks down. "I will get right to it, then, if you don't mind."

James shakes his head, leaning forward. He can't even bring his teacup to his lips for more than the first sip. He needs to hear this, he tells himself. He needs to know. "I most certainly don't mind. Tell me, if you please. What happened in my absence, Anne-Marie?"

She sighs and worries her lip for a moment. Then, glancing up, she begins the tale.

"It was a cold night. The cooks were staying late, making hot chocolate for the lot of us. It was late February, on a dry, frosty evening. There was no snow, but there was plenty of ice. Anyhow, some of us had heating pans in our beds to warm them before we got in, but someone forgot to remove theirs, and one of the cooks forgot to extinguish the fire in the kitchen.

"The combination of one maid's bed lighting on fire and some of the wood in the kitchen roared to life, and spread throughout the manor. None of us knew much about it until it was nearly too late. Many of us got hurt. Three of us died," she relays, dabbing her eyes with her apron. She sniffs and continues, "Zoë, bless her heart, was the one to run through the house and alert all of us to evacuate, much to my chagrin, because she could have gotten hurt! But she wasn't one of the ones to walk away with more than burns that look like a bad sunburn.

"Mr. Rochester, however, has always been difficult to wake. I didn't even realize, in all the chaos, that he wasn't with us until it was nearly too late. He appeared, but he and I both noticed that Miss Jennifer was nowhere in sight. I panicked – shrieked, really – and nearly dove back into the now high flames to find her and rescue her. But Mr. Rochester held me back, and went inside himself.

"He got her just in time, when her wounds were minor enough to be cared for. But as he got her out, some support beams from an upper floor fell, bricks with them. It blocked his way. And he stood there, in plain sight but unable to escape, and just… let the flames fall where they may around him."

Anne-Marie shakes her head, and James feels his heart clench and his throat tighten. He doesn't feel the prick and burn of tears or the clog in his nose until there is wetness plopping onto his hands in his lap.

Numb. He is absolutely numb.

The former maid goes on, "There was nothing we could do until the firemen arrived with their buckets and ladders. They saved a few more, and recovered Mr. Rochester's body. He was a limp mass of limbs, and I couldn't look at him, particularly not his leg. It was a mess."

James abruptly stands. "Where is he?" he demands. His grave, anything; James will settle for whatever is left of his lover, as long as he may see the older man again _somehow,_ someway.

Anne sighs, her exhale wavering. "Eat first, James, please. You need your strength," she whispers.

He drops back down into his seat, nodding quietly. "You are right. You are absolutely right," he murmurs, still numb, in response.

Jennifer enters then, a tray in her hands. He barely tastes the food, barely feels the texture as he chews it. And his tea tastes lukewarm when he washes the sustenance down with it.

Anne-Marie, satisfied with how much James has eaten, stands and offers her hand. He takes it, standing from his seat. "He's by the tree. Your favorite tree, the one you used to like to read by when he would ride his horse up to you."

The memory filters in as clear and bright as if it had happened moments ago, and James closes his eyes and replays it in his mind as he walks, alone, from Anne's cottage and moves by touch along a fence toward the tree across the creek on the edge of the grounds.

0o0o0

"Is this not perfect?" Michael hums blissfully a she rides his horse along the makeshift path worn down from months of feet, bare and booted alike, scampering across it. He gestures toward the sky, the meadow, the air. "Sunny for an English day, even in the summer, and so fresh and warm. It's my favorite sort of day to ride."

_James nods, coming up alongside the beast and rider, hands clasped at the base of his spine. "Mm, yes. It is a lovely day. And yet I still spent most of it reading," he says, smiling up at the older man. He pulls a hand from behind his back to reveal a novel in his hand, his thumb holding his place in it. "But this day, Mr. Rochester… it would not be complete without a bit of darkness or mystery. Do you not see the clouds on the horizon? Rain is coming, and possibly a thunderstorm."_

_Michael half-smiles, half-frowns. "Is that so?" And he peers ahead, squinting into the sunlight, to attempt to see the same clouds. His face relaxes, and he leans back on his horse as it continues trotting along. "Ahh, so there is. But I suppose that's only fair; perfectly gorgeous days such as these are only fleeting and ghost-like. I should have known."_

_James nods, agreeing. He touches a hand to Michael's thigh and peers upward. Michael's horse slows to a steady walk. "Yes, but Mr. Rochester, I do honestly believe that you are the most fleeting and ghost-like of them all. Because, similar to days such as these, you come and go quite often. And above all else, you always bring stormclouds after your sun leaves us. Jennifer and I, as well as half the servants, all agree that we miss you when you're gone."_

_"Is that so?" Michael repeats, his tone softhearted and uncovered, like the breast of a newborn bird. "Well, I shan't be leaving anytime soon, then," he says with that same tone, and halts his horse._

_James smiles momentarily, and leans his head down onto Michael's leg, pressing a side-kiss to the man's knee before lifting his head and walking away, headed for their tree, the one James reads beneath and Michael ties his horse near to graze._

0o0o0

When James opens his eyes, he is at the bridge. He thinks he sees a figure with a cane on a newly-built bench beneath their tree, but he doesn't permit his hopes to rise too terribly high. He inhales, holds it a few seconds, swallows, and slowly exhales through his nose.

James takes tentative steps over the creek and up the broad, lightly slanted hill to the tree. When he reaches it, his breath hitches in his throat and nearly makes him swoon with dizziness from the rush of emotion flooding his veins.

Michael Rochester sits there, back against the tree trunk, legs parted, hands folded over a cane between his legs, and his eyes are closed in rest, head tilted back. There is a bulge under his left pant-leg, and his hands are covered by gloves. His leg was broken severely, James pieces together. And he must have been badly burned for a while. But thank God it didn't muss his lovely face.

James steps closer, and a twig snaps under his foot.

Michael gives a start, jerking into sitting position, his back lifting off of the bark and his hands grappling his cane. He blinks, pans the scene before him, and his eyes land squarely on James' frame.

Unexpectedly, the older man shakes his head and adverts his gaze. "Wonderful. And now my eyes are playing tricks on me. How badly did that smoke sear them?" he says to himself in a low, sorrowful mumble. He removes glasses he never needed before from his breast pocket and stands, stretching, ignoring James as he starts to limp away from the tree.

"Michael!" James shouts, nearly offended. "How can you possibly think me a figment of your imagination? I'm _right here,_ dammit!" he says, storming after the older man.

But Mr. Rochester has already stopped dead in his tracks, turning to stare in wild bewilderment at the younger man. "…James? It's actually… You're truly here?"

"Yes," James hisses, conviction in his tone and tears welling in his eyes as he rushes up to Michael, standing before him to grip the lapels of his spring jacket. "And I have been an utter fool: leaving as I did, not being there for the fire, making you think that I didn't –"

Except the former tutor can hardly get another word out before Michael's lips are crushing onto his, a gloved hands gripping one side of his face while the other tosses down the cane and encircles James' waist. Breaking the intense kiss that nearly suffocates the younger man, Michael replies, "I don't even care, James. As long as you have returned to me, I could care less what you've done or where you have gone. You are here, now, real enough to touch, and that is all I care about."

James could cry. He nearly does. Instead, he reaches up and presses kisses all over Michael's face, ignoring the coarse sensation of the depression-induced stubble all over Michael's jawline, thick enough to nearly be called a small beard. He makes small noises as he plants each new kiss, almost whimpering with how elated he feels, finally reunited with the one person he should have never left to begin with.

He covers Michael's eyelids, forehead, temples, cheeks, jaw, chin, nose, and yes, his lips, too, with a kiss. He doesn't even think about how foolish it might appear, nor bother with the possibility of someone seeing them. Michael is his, always has been and always will be, and that is enough.

And James will be just as faithfully committed in return; always has been and always will be Michael's.

"You were wrong, James Eyre. I am not the ghost-like one of us; it is you. But now that I have you once more, I intend on solidifying you and keeping you be my side forever," Michael whispers, cradling James' head to his chest and making the distance between their bodies as tiny as physically possible.

James can only nod and cling in return. He can't even say what he wants to, that he will gladly have that happen, that he loves Michael whole-heartedly, and so much more. So he opts to share in another kiss, and have that make up the contents of his promises for him.

_The End._


End file.
